This Companion is a readable and up-to-date guide to all aspects of the
extraordinary flowering of theatre in Early-Modern Spain.
Spain's artistic Golden Age produced Cervantes's great novel, Don
Quijote, the sublime poetry of Quevedo and Góngora, and nurtured the
prodigious talent of Velázquez, and yet it was the theatre that captured
the imaginationof its people. Men and women of all social classes
flocked to the new playhouses to see and hear the latest offerings of
their favourite dramatists, and to be seen and heard.
As well as dealing with the lives and major works of the most
significant playwrights of the period - Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina,
Miguel de Cervantes, Calderón de la Barca - the Companion focusses on
other aspects of the growth and maturing of Golden Age theatre,
reflecting the interests and priorities of modern scholarship. These
include: the sixteenth-century origins of the comedia nueva; the
lesser-known dramatists, including women playwrights; life in the
theatre; the Corpus Christi street theatre and minor genres; performance
studies; and the critical reception of the drama. The Companion also
contains a guide to comedia versification, a full bibliography and
advice on further reading.
JONATHAN THACKER is a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford.